Friday, October 28, 2016

Photographs of the victims
are displayed at the Kafr Qassem Massacre Museum. (Photo credit: Dylan Collins)

If your Palestinian neighbors
and friends seem slightly on edge today, please excuse them. October 29th
brings back horrific memories to Palestinians everywhere, young and old. It was
60 years ago today that a scene of cold-blooded murder fell upon the hill-top
Palestinian village of Kafr Qassem (also written Kfar
Kassim), located in Israel about 20 km east of Tel Aviv, near the Green Line (1949
Armistice Agreement’s demarcation line) separating Israel and the West Bank. It
was in Kafr Qassem on this day in 1956 where the
Israeli military literally mowed down in cold blood 48 innocent civilians, one
being a pregnant woman whose fetus is counted as the 49th victim. It was said
that all of this was done in the service of the almighty Israeli “military
order,” which no one dared to challenge.

Sixty years is a long time to
mourn a death, even a cold-blooded murder. It is even longer when you must live
among those, and under the system of those, who murdered your
loved ones. Had this been merely an isolated incident of the Israeli military
machine killing Palestinians, one may have already regulated it to the history
books. But it was and is not.

There were other massacres prior to Kafr Qasssem, such as the case of Deir Yassin in 1948. Since that dark day in Kafr Qassem there have been numerous
other incidents, too many to list. One that comes to mind is 13-year old Iman
al-Homs who, in October 2004, was walking home from school in Gaza when an Israeli soldier emptied his magazine into her after she was wounded and lay on the ground. The
soldier was caught on radio communications saying he was “confirming the kill.”
The most recent example that comes to mind is the Israeli soldier caught on camera in Hebron this past March as he executed a wounded and
immobilized Palestinian man lying on the ground by firing a bullet into his
head as his fellow soldiers casually watched on.

Unlike today, decades ago
Israel did undertake more serious investigations of actions of its military.
This is not to say that justice was ever served—it rarely is. Such a landmark
investigation was the Israeli Kahan Commission, established by the Israeli
government on September 28, 1982, to investigate the Sabra and Shatila massacre
(September 16–18, 1982) where 1,000-3,000 (exact number is disputed)
Palestinians were slaughtered over three days.

The Kahan Commission was chaired
by the Israeli President of the Supreme Court, Yitzhak Kahan. Its other two
members were Israeli Supreme Court Judge Aharon Barak and Major general (res.)
Yona Efrat. The Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was found to bear
personal responsibility. Sharon's negligence in protecting the civilian
population of Beirut, which had come under Israeli control, resulted in a recommendation
that Sharon be dismissed as Defense Minister. Although Sharon grudgingly resigned
as Defense Minister, he remained in the Cabinet as a Minister without
Portfolio. Years later, Sharon would be elected Israel's Prime Minister.

Back to Kafr Qassem.

The Israeli English
newspaper, Haaretz, reported in a story by correspondent Ofer Aderet (60 years after massacre, Kafr Qasem doesn’t want an apology from the Israeli government, October 28, 2016) that, “In the 60 years since the [Kafr Qasem]
carnage Israel’s attitude has been complicated. Those involved in it were court
martialed, convicted and some sentenced at first to long prison terms [these
“long terms” were less than what the law stipulated for premeditated murder]. [Israeli]
Judge Benjamin Halevy coined the phrase “a blatantly illegal order” in his
verdict. The instruction to Israel Defense Forces soldiers that they are
obliged to refuse an order “that has a black flag flying over it” has become
part of the Kafr Qasem legacy.”

The Haaretz story goes on,
“But the convicted parties’ sentence was soon commuted by the chief of staff,
they were pardoned by the president and released from jail. The most senior
defendant, Col. Issachar Shadmi, commander of the brigade in charge of the
area, was sentenced to a symbolic fine of 10 pennies for exceeding authority.
Major Shmuel Malinki, commander of the Border Patrol battalion, testified at
the trial that Shadmi had ordered him to enforce the curfew with gunshots.
Asked what would happen to those who return to the village after the curfew,
Kedmi said Shadmi had said “may God have mercy on their soul.””

And maybe most shocking of
all coming from an Israeli newspaper is that, “The comparison between the Kafr
Qasem massacre and the Holocaust was first made at the trial, when the [Israeli]
judge asked one of the defendants if he would have justified a Nazi soldier who
was obeying orders.” The Haaretz correspondent continues, “In 1986, 30 years
after the massacre, Shalom Ofer, one of the convicted soldiers, said in an
interview to Ha’ir: “We were like the Germans. They stopped trucks, took the
Jews off and shot them. What we did is the same. We were obeying orders like a
German soldier during the war, when he was ordered to slaughter Jews.””

Many, especially those in the
Jewish community in Israel and abroad, will rightfully find the above words
hard to swallow. I don’t blame them. This horrendous act was revolting and when
undertaken in “your” name it makes one sick to their stomach.

Aderet's article offers but a glimpse into the legal proceedings surrounding Kafr
Qassem. One of the first people to document those
proceedings was attorney Sabri Jiryis in his landmark book,The Arabs in Israel, published in Haifa in Hebrew in 1966. A fuller account of the testimonies
recorded by the Israeli commanders and soldiers who took part in this killing
spree can be found printed here [with the
author’s permission] in English. Warning: it’s a disturbing read.

And this, my friends, is the
buried past and not so buried present, of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), “the
most moral army in the world.” It is imperative that we all redouble our
efforts to not make it its future as well, military order or not.

Palestinian universities are
fighting an uphill battle on two fronts, one being the Israeli military
occupation, and more recently, the other being the Palestinian government.
Although each poses two very different sets of challenges, one outcome is
clear. If immediate and decisive intervention is not forthcoming, the
structural damage that will set back entire generations of Palestinian students
will haunt Palestine’s developmental capabilities for many years to come. That
is, if the damage has not already been inflicted.Prolonged Israeli military
occupation of Palestine (West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip) has
caused a staggering amount of damage to the Palestinian society at large. Much
of this damage is visible to the naked eye, such as land grabs, settlements,
walls, fences, checkpoints, demolished airports, and bombed-out buildings, just
to name a few. However, the more serious and long-term damage is hidden from
view. I call it the administratively applied part of the Israeli military
occupation. These invisible aspects of the occupation comprise issues such as
the infamous permit system, the limiting and prohibiting of access to the
electromagnetic spectrum, confiscation of water resources, severely limiting
Palestinians’ access to water, and importation restrictions. The list is long.

These are the elements of
occupation you cannot capture in a photo. One of the key elements Israel has routinely
sought to attack is Palestine’s education system. The Israeli fixation on
blocking Palestinian education is not new.

When Israel was yet in its formative
years, it introduced an office of the advisor to the [Israeli] prime minister
on Arab affairs. As quoted in Atty. Sabri Jiryis’ landmark book, “The Arabs
in Israel” (1976), one of the most racist persons to hold this position was
Uri Lubrani (1960-1963). Lubrani stated in a lecture, “It very probably would
be better if there were no Arab university students. It probably would be
easier to govern them if they continued to work as wood cutters and waiters.”
It seems this desire has not faded away.

Earlier this month, Muwatin
Institute for Democracy andHuman
Rights, a Palestinian research group which recently became affiliated
with Birzeit University, held its 22nd Annual Conference titled,
“The Complex Challenges Facing Palestinian Universities: Is There a Way Out?” The
conference was held at Birzeit University on September 30 and October 1, 2016.
The Muwatin Conference came on the heels of a provocative student strike at
Birzeit University, which witnessed a handful of students forcibly chain closed
the gates of the university, totally paralyzing the university for nearly a
month and delaying the start of the school year. There is no indication that
the situation has stabilized to prohibit the students (or teachers’/workers’
unions) from undertaking future disruptive labor action. The backdrop of this
strike made the Muwatin Conference even more timely.

The conference brought
together an impressive audience of senior academics, education administrators,
including several current and past university presidents, private sector
concerns, and Palestinian government officials, including the current Minister
of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Sabri Saidam, as well as several
ex-ministers. The panels hosted some of the top Palestinian thinkers on higher education.

One panel, Higher Education: Continuation
or Start Over?, offered an historical overview of the young Palestinian higher
education sector. Another panel, Where Does Higher Education Stand in Palestine?,
grappled with the need to educate for the sake of education, as well as to educate
to serve a productive labor market, one that is extremely distressed by
prolonged occupation. Other panels were titled Self-Restricting Constraints on
Higher Education, University Economics and Country Economics, Higher Education Under
Occupation, The Regulatory Framework for Higher Education, and Higher Education
and State Building. Having listened attentively to them all, the overarching
messages were loud and clear: our higher education system remains in the crosshairs
of the Israeli occupation, and the Palestinian government, with its deep
financial constraints and lack of legislative oversight, is unable to stop the
imminent damage on its own.

From the Israeli side, the
damage to the higher education sector is systemic. Physical targeting of
university facilities, as was the case at the Islamic University in the Gaza
Strip, and frequent incursions on to campuses, as was recently the case at the
Palestine Technical University (Kadoorie) located in Tulkarm and Birzeit
University near Ramallah, have brought material damage and disruption to
university operations. Additionally, the heavy restrictions Israel has placed
on Palestinians’ movement and access have forced universities to be established
near the students, bringing the total number of universities to 15
for a population of 4.8 million with over 220,000 university students, with three
new private universities in the pipeline. This forced geographic fragmenting of
our community is not only draining material resources, but it is cannibalizing
the shrinking pool of qualified university professors, especially those holding
PhDs. Just last month, Israel
denied entry into the country to UK-based scholar Dr. Adam Hanieh, who was
invited by the Ph.D. Program in the Social Sciences at Birzeit University to
deliver a series of lectures at the university. He is not the first case of an
academic being denied access. The number of Israeli restrictions and disruptions
is too long to list here.

On the side of the Palestinian
government, the criticism was pointed. The inability of the government to meet
its financial commitments to universities was highlighted by almost every
panelist, especially given the over 40 percent budget allocation that goes
toward security. Another alarming issue brought up by many was the issue that
the Palestinian security forces have “infiltrated” the universities and are
seen as hindering the academic freedoms students expect. This criticism was exacerbated
by the fact that, as of late, the Palestinian security forces have arrested and
interrogated many student activists.

The Muwatin Conference
distributed a booklet titled, “Higher Education in Palestine…Beyond the
Figures!!!” I think the three explanation points in the booklet’s title speak
for themselves. Nevertheless, reading the set of statistics presented, from the
rising unemployment rates, to the declining interest in sciences, to the
inability of the labor market to absorb the nearly 40,000 annual graduates, it
becomes apparent that the situation is reaching a tipping point and the
spillover, when it occurs, will not remain confined behind campus walls.

It was refreshing, albeit
depressing, to hear the case made by Dr. Samia Botmeh, Assistant Professor of
Economics at Birzeit University, about the negative effect that neo-liberalism is
having on Palestine’s higher education system. She made a convincing argument
that higher education cannot merely be reduced to providing job skills to serve
a market (something she called the “productization” of education), but rather
must be viewed from a much broader societal vantage point where a higher
education is instilling a set of values and skills to produce a life-long
learner who has the ability to assume his or her role in society, be it in serving
a business, engaging a philosophical dilemma, producing music, or being a
homemaker.

One missing aspect of the
conference that I have interest in was how to utilize our diaspora, academics
and non-academics, to support the higher education of Palestinians, as well as
Palestinian higher education institutes. A week before the conference, my consulting
firm launched a Linkedin Group, Academic Network for Palestine
(ANPs), to start to collect in one location those Palestinian academics and
non-Palestinian academics who are in solidarity with Palestine to discuss ways
to support the sector.

Ironically, as I was writing
this article, my 11th-grade daughter, Nadine, came to me with her laptop in
hand. She enthusiastically wanted me to watch something. It was this, THE PEOPLE VS THE SCHOOL SYSTEM,
a YouTube clip by American rapper, spoken word artist, music video director and
rights activist from St Louis, Missouri, Richard Williams, better known by his
stage name Prince EA. Nadine’s timing was spot on.

Palestine’s challenge is huge.
As this video clip by Prince EA so eloquently articulates, we must deal with
the same mega-challenges that the entire world is dealing with, the only
difference is we must do so while the oppressive boot of Israeli military
occupation is pressing on our necks. Ignoring desperately needed reforms and
freedoms in Palestine’s education system levies a heavy price on students and
the society at large. As Palestinian educators struggle to survive, our Israeli
occupier is laughing all the way to the next settlement hilltop.

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American
businessman. He does business consulting as Applied Information Management
(AIM) and is the Chairman of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian
Economy. He served as a Board of Trustee member at
Birzeit University from 2004 to 2010. He writes frequently on Palestinian
affairs and blogs at www.epalestine.com.

Sam Bahour - Photo

About Me

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American based in Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine and is managing partner of Applied Information Management (AIM), which specializes in business development with a niche focus on start-ups and providing executive counsel.
Bahour was instrumental in the establishment of two publicly traded firms: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Center. He is currently an independent director at the Arab Islamic Bank, advisory board member of the Open Society Foundations’ Arab Regional Office, and completed a full term as a Board of Trustees member and treasurer at Birzeit University. In addition to his presidential appointment to serve as a general assembly member of the Palestine Investment Fund, Palestine’s $1B sovereign wealth fund, Bahour serves in various capacities in several community organizations, including co-founder and chairman of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, board member of Just Vision in New York, board member and policy adviser at Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, and secretariat member of the Palestine Strategy Group.